At the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) annual conference in Orlando, Ligaya Byrch presented a poster highlighting Waypoint’s work in this area. A member of Waypoint’s Health Systems Integration team, she presented a poster on “Improving Access: Co-ordinated Access for Mental Health and Addictions Services.”

Byrch has been acting as the Project Manager for the Ontario Central Region’s Regional Co-ordinated Access for Mental Health and Addictions. Waypoint acts as the transfer payment agent for this regional strategy.

The poster focused on the work completed to date, including a provincial definition of co-ordinated access and what is in scope and out of scope for this project. Further, the poster outlined the Persons with Lived and/or Living Experience Engagement Framework that will be utilized by the project. The framework focuses on the pre-design of the system-wide tool, as well as the design, post-design and maintenance phases of the project. Currently, the team is focused on the pre-design phase of engagement.

Co-ordinated Access for Mental Health and Addictions will focus on a system-wide solution for intake and referral for anyone wishing to access mental health and addictions outpatient services and community-delivered programs and services. The project and poster were well received, garnering some interest in an integrated, system-wide solution.

The mandate of IHI is to provide knowledge and education to health care professionals from around the globe to improve all aspects of health and health care for patients, caregivers, the health workforce and populations.